First Century Languages

[XinMinny]

Hello.
I have a question based on a discussion I was reading in a different thread.
Background: The question at hand was the Greek wording in Matthew 16. I am not interested in discussing that, as it has already been discussed ad nauseam.
However, someone there made a comment about Jesus speaking to Peter in that situation in Aramaic. I understand that that must have been the case, for it was the language of the day (Unless he spoke Hebrew??). The question I have is whether there are any pieces of writing from that day in Aramaic?
I suppose in my own mind that the Aramaic conversation was likely never written down, and the first record was made in Greek, but that is only my assumption.
Can anyone help me with this?
Thanks,

Minny

 

[elvisman]

Hello.
I have a question based on a discussion I was reading in a different thread.
Background: The question at hand was the Greek wording in Matthew 16. I am not interested in discussing that, as it has already been discussed ad nauseam.
However, someone there made a comment about Jesus speaking to Peter in that situation in Aramaic. I understand that that must have been the case, for it was the language of the day (Unless he spoke Hebrew??). The question I have is whether there are any pieces of writing from that day in Aramaic?
I suppose in my own mind that the Aramaic conversation was likely never written down, and the first record was made in Greek, but that is only my assumption.
Can anyone help me with this?
Thanks,

Minny

Not really sure, but I don’t think so.
The Gospel of Matthew has been hotly debated for hundreds of years because of this very notion. Some say that it was originally written in Greek and others claim that it was translated into Greek from Aramaic.

That being said, it really doesn’t matter if there are copies in Aramaic because the whole point of the matter is that “Kepha” is the only word used for stone in Aramaic.
This is why Peter’s name is transliterated in some of Pauls letters as “Cephas”.

 

[Todd_Easton]

If the article on the “Dead Sea Scrolls” at wikipedia.com is accruate, a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been dated to the first century or a little earlier and are written in Aramaic. However, as far as I can tell, the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain any Christian writings in Aramaic or any other language.

 

[Mintaka]

Here’s a whole page about Aramaic literature. You’ll see that there’s quite a bit from around Jesus’ time – and even more, if you include Syriac literature.

cal.huc.edu/aramaic_language.html

Syriac and Aramaic literature is a very hot academic topic, because there’s a lot more material available than there are people qualified to study it. Tons of this stuff has never been translated into English or any other European language, and it’s a very expressive language by all accounts.